Perhaps Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry’s outgoing CEO, will not receive his $22 million termination package. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, Heins decided to resign from BlackBerry and was not forced out of his role.
Prem Watsa, Fairfax Financial Holdings chairman and BlackBerry board member, stated that “Thorsten did a very good job given the hand that he was dealt, but resigned because you can’t have two people being in charge. He said to me, ‘It’s very appropriate for me to resign. I like John Chen, but I’m a CEO and there is one person in charge.’”
Heins successfully launched the new BlackBerry 10 OS, plus brought BBM to the iPhone and Android. Looks like Heins made his decision not to have BlackBerry led by dual-CEO’s like how Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie once did. Speaking of Lazaridis, the Globe also noted that a “highly conditional proposal” was put forward to the board by Lazaridis, BlackBerry co-founder Doug Fregin and Cerberus Capital, but was ultimately rejected because “Mike wanted to go at this on his own. We’d have been happy to work with Mike, but he wanted to do this on his own,” said Watsa.
BlackBerry recorded revenues of $1.6 billion in Q2 2013, down 49% from $3.1 billion from Q1, and sold about 3.7 million smartphones.
Source: Globe
